One of the great things about growing up and getting your own place is that you can have your own pets – and you can choose whatever pets your heart desires.

But you’ll learn quite quickly after you get a pet that they can be quite polarising.

That friend who came round every Saturday night? They’re allergic to cats, and unless you want them sneezing all evening, it’s not going to be quite the same.

Your grandma? She’s never going to comprehend why you wanted a pet python, and no, she definitely doesn’t want to see him.

All that said, pets are a joy and the benefits they can bring to your life are very much worth some of the negatives that come along with them.

But as the person in this story found out, one important part of pet ownership is taking responsibility for those negatives.

Read on to find out why they almost lost a friend as a result.

AITA for refusing to pay to have my friend’s house cleaned?

I had to quickly come down to the city where I grew up recently, due to the death of a close family member. It was a pretty spur-of-the-moment occurrence, and I had to drop things rather quickly.

I informed one of my friends and they offered to put me up for a few days. I said that would be great, but told them I’d have my dogs with me so totally understood if they wouldn’t be able to.

The friend said it would be fine and they were more than happy to host me.

But this visit really didn’t get off to a good start.

For context, my dogs are not badly trained by any standard, but they are both large breed dogs (a lab and a GSD) so of course can be a bit “much” for many non-dog owners.

I am aware of this and that’s why I usually don’t bring them to peoples houses.

I made the five hour drive down, and my friend came out to greet me. When unpacking the car I let the dogs out and immediately they went off to toilet (since it was a long trip).

My lab went into the bushes to go but the GSD began to go in the middle of the front porch (don’t ask me why, but she much prefers whizzing on hard surfaces) and my friend immediately freaked out.

I was a bit confused and apologised, but it’s outside so I didn’t get why she was so freaked out.

Read on to find out how things went for the rest of the visit.

The dogs were fine the entire stay. They are non-eventful inside.

They let me know when they need out and I clean up the mess straight away. I keep them under good supervision.

At the end of the trip, my friend sent me a text saying “Hey, as you’d know the house is quite messy because of the dogs, and I’m going to hire a cleaner. Would you mind paying me for that?”

I was a bit taken aback. The dogs had zero accidents inside. Didn’t break anything. I asked what she meant, and she explained that there was dog hair everywhere.

Let’s see how this dog owner felt about the situation.

The thing is, they are shedding dogs. I know that. If she’d asked me to vacuum up after them I would have. But she didn’t.

I also don’t think a deep clean would be necessary. A quick vacuum of the carpets, couch, bed, etc. would be more than enough to remove any trace.

I don’t know what to do. I didn’t ask to stay with her – she offered. I told her about my dogs, and she was fine with that.

AITA?

It was really good of this friend to offer to put them up at short notice, especially considering the two big dogs that would be coming along for the ride.

The death of a family member is never an easy time, and they no doubt made this person’s life a lot easier – but at the cost of a dirtier house and potentially the price of a cleaner.

It’s also easy to understand why the dog owner is upset, since the hair is not a problem to them, and they’d had no reason to believe it would be an issue ahead of time – but they also have to respect that others might not be as unbothered by pet hair as they are.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that to someone who doesn’t have big dogs, they certainly would have made quite the mess.

While others thought that the only right thing to do was pay for the cleaner.

Meanwhile, this Redditor suspected that the friendship might be over, too.

It’s definitely the case that if the dog owner wants to salvage the friendship, they definitely need to pay for the cleaner – and apologize for the mess.

The dog smell, the slobber, the vast amounts of hair and the mess on the porch are all things that the friend likely didn’t expect when they offered their friend somewhere to stay, and as someone without dogs it’s understandable that they want their house cleaned up sooner rather than later.

Clearly it’s not an appropriate place for them to stay in future, but instead of ranting they ought to be grateful that they were hosted at short notice.

Refusing to pay for the mess your dogs made?

That’s not what friends do.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.